


build it bigger than the sun

by defcontwo



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M, accidentally secret relationship, the world's most useless and irritated secret agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-06
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-16 08:09:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2262255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Yeah, because nothing says heteronormative like living in Dupont Circle for two years and wearing skin-tight shirts to hit on hot airmen when you go running in the morning.” </p><p>“Look, I know you’re being sarcastic but I really don’t get how no one picked up on that.” </p><p>Steve and Bucky try to work out their relationship. The Avengers keep getting in the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	build it bigger than the sun

**Author's Note:**

> so so many thanks to Ki and to Neely for enabling and beta-ing, this could not have gotten done or hell, it probably wouldn't even exist without you two.

The bar is empty when Steve enters, low-lit and host to only a few early, wan-looking Happy Hour stragglers, juxtaposed by bright and cheerful beer advertisements plastered onto the wood-paneled walls. The whole effect makes the room oddly disjointed and less welcoming than it’s striving to be, but this dive is out of the way of prying eyes coupled with a beer list three pages long, making the aesthetics irrelevant. 

Steve moves to a booth in the back, collapsing into a seat on one side and burying his head in his arms. There’s something sticking to his elbows and it might be not-entirely-dried beer but right now, it’s about the least of his worries. 

“So, you look well,” Sharon says. She’s got a cat that got the canary grin pointed right at him over the top of a pitcher of the house IPA, their usual. Never let it be said that Sharon Carter will ever go easy on a guy, not even a national legend, but at least she always orders the beer ahead of time. 

Steve grunts. He doesn’t try to make much of an effort here. Even if Sharon didn’t already know about his many less than admirable qualities from Peggy, she spent months on end living right next door to him, keeping watch. There was a point when that rankled because this brave new world likes its covers and its secrets more than he’s comfortable with, engendering mistrust between them, but the long months that they worked together in the aftermath of HYDRA filed that mistrust down, creating something raw and genuine in its place. They get each other, even if they don’t always agree. 

No amount of acting like he doesn’t feel like ten piles of shit and just as frustrated on top of it will fly. There’s a certain reassurance in that, a comfort that he didn’t have a mere one or two years ago that he tries not to take for granted. That there can still be people in this world who look at him and see Steve first, Captain America second. 

“That bad, huh?” 

Steve eases up, straightening his shoulders and nodding a thanks as the bartender comes over and brings them two clean pint glasses. 

“How are things with you and Sam?” Steve asks, pointedly changing the subject. 

Sharon pours them both a pint, pushing Steve’s to his side of the table with an arched eyebrow. “You were right, he’s a great kisser. Don’t change the subject, Rogers.” 

Steve takes an exaggeratedly long sip of his beer, taking maybe a little more pleasure than he should at Sharon impatiently tapping a beer coaster against the edge of the table, muttering something about “dramatics” under her breath. 

It’s incredible all the ways in which she and Peggy are so strikingly different that he could never guess that they were related at all. But then there are moments like this and he might as well be seventy years and thousands of miles away. 

“Bucky and I are trying...trying to work some things through,” Steve admits at last. “But it’s become impossible to get time alone together long enough to make that happen.” 

“But you live together,” Sharon says flatly. 

“I know,” Steve says, throwing his hands up in the air. “ _I know_. But from Barton and Wanda to Pepper and Tony, it’s like we’re never alone long enough to talk. I think….after the trial, people felt sorry for us. They think we’re lonely, that _I’m_ lonely,” Steve corrects himself because if he’s being honest, he’s the one people are showing all this concern for. 

With Bucky, it’s harder. The enormity of what was done to him scares people off from even trying. It’s compassion fatigue from the get-go coupled with a healthy dose of fear that mostly just sees people’s concerned gazes slide right over Bucky and right onto Steve, the apparent long-suffering best friend. 

“I guess they think that that I need to get out more. You know, meet someone, lead a normal life.” 

Sharon rolls her eyes. “Please, I’ve seen you lonely. They’d know it if you were lonely because it’s the saddest fucking thing to have to watch and I had to watch it a lot.” 

“Yeah, well….” Steve trails off, reaching up to scratch at his forehead, a tight grimace crossing his face. “Me and Bucky are a work in progress.” 

“A good work in progress?” 

“Yeah,” Steve says, and he doesn’t have to look in a mirror to know that the tight grimace has faded into a small, fond smile and a slightly dopey expression that he refuses to be embarrassed about. His index finger traces designs into the condensation on the side of his glass and only now does he realize the design is less a design and more the exact angle of Bucky’s jawline when he laughs. Sam’s right, this “drawing Bucky” habit is a little out of control. 

Steve coughs, suddenly self-conscious. 

“Yeah, we’re good. Just….there’s a lot we never talked about. He needs time. The constant intrusions from people he doesn’t trust yet aren’t exactly helping. If it was you or Natasha or Sam, it would be one thing. Hell, Maria or Fury even, he could live with. But everyone else?” 

“Why don’t you just try _telling_ people about you and Bucky?”

Steve just stares, already feeling the annoyed flush creep up the back of his neck. “Gee, why didn’t I think of that. Oh, if only _just telling people_ had occurred to me before.” 

“You don’t have to get snippy with me, Rogers. What, people don’t believe you?” 

“Nothing says traditionally heteronormative like Captain America, right?” Steve says, tinged with no small amount of bitterness and resignation. Somehow, Steve Rogers versus Captain America is the one battle that he keeps on losing. There’s just not enough people in the little guy’s corner these days; he guesses that much has always been true. 

Sharon shakes her head. “Yeah, because nothing says heteronormative like living in Dupont Circle for two years and wearing skin-tight shirts to hit on hot airmen when you go running in the morning,” she says, voice as dry as the desert.

Steve frowns unhappily. 

“Look, I know you’re being sarcastic but I really don’t get how no one picked up on that.”

  


***

It was never going to be easy.

Steve knew that. He knew that every single aching, painful step of the way from that first day out of the hospital to that last day of the trial, Bucky at his back, all red-rimmed eyes and hunched posture, carrying the weight of a conditional pardon. 

They’ve never done anything the easy way, the two of them. It’s just not who they are. It’s not how they do things. 

There’s urban legends about this, now, stories passed down from generation to generation about Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes, from way back when they were just two dumbshit Brooklyn boys with bloodied knees. 

This country has a fascination with this -- with this idea of no easy way out, of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, because if you haven’t fought every step of the way to get where you are, maybe you don’t deserve the final destination. 

It’s a lie, though, a manufactured American dream papered over with bright paint and propaganda lies and Steve, Steve thinks that they’ve fought hard enough. 

The Winter Soldier, né Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, is required to remain in a secured residence for a minimum of one year post-trial, pending review. The residence must be made public, must have the capacity for surveillance and must be able to receive military officials once a month for mandatory security check-ups on the psychological state of the Winter Soldier. 

The trial was too public, too media-saturated, to allow for anything less. 

It was Stark Tower or detainment, their backs to the wall with no way out. 

They would’ve gone on the run, Steve knows, because he would’ve accepted nothing else, no other scenario but that third way out, if it weren’t for the intel that filtered through halfway through the trial -- intel on how Howard Stark built the Winter Soldier’s arm, intel on how he signed off on Project Winter Soldier for years and years without ever bothering to ask what it was all for until it was much, _much_ , too late. 

It was a long, aching process to uncover the right details and to track down the right names, all the while Sharon tried to leverage them more time from her position at the CIA but in the end -- in the end, the picture painted by the intel was too gruesome, too horrifying a conclusion to ignore. 

Two days later, Tony Stark knocks on the door of Steve’s motel room, running on Red Bull and mania, face lined and eyes burning with some sour combination of rage and resentment and grief. Steve barely gets the door open before Stark is throwing out a one-liner about cleaning up after dear old dad and making them a deal. 

Neither of them are happy about it, really, and there’s so many ways that it could go wrong. Stark made the floor for Steve in a simpler time, when they were still flush from a battle gone right and there was still a chance that they could be, if not exactly friends, maybe civil teammates. 

Stark didn’t build it expecting to house the man who killed his parents, the man who rigged their car and made it look like an accident but Stark remains determined to bear the weight of Stark Industries’ many bad decisions made on the backs of others and Steve -- Steve would do anything to keep Bucky out of another prison. 

The enemy of my enemy is my friend, isn’t that how that old saying goes. 

But as Steve ran through all the ways this could go wrong, the picture he saw most often was this: the two of them, getting kicked out after all, on the lam again, him and Bucky and a motorcycle to get them by. 

He pictured Bucky and Stark duking it out and crashing through one of many expensive windows. 

He pictured _him_ and Stark duking it out and crashing through one of many expensive windows. 

Steve planned in broad strokes and worst case scenarios. The minutiae of the day-to-day, that part was secondary, irrelevant past the point of “get Bucky somewhere safe and figure it out.” 

“You never were any good at seeing the trees through the forest, Rogers,” Steve tells himself, in a voice that sounds a whole lot like Peggy. 

Well. 

She was right.

  


***

“Home sweet home, I guess,” Steve says, heaving a duffle off of his shoulders and onto the couch in their floor’s common room. “What do you think, got a room preference?”

Bucky shrugs, sharp eyes taking in every window and every exit. There’s a short, wrought-iron staircase up to the living area where two bedrooms are set side by side. Steve studied the floor plans beforehand, they both did -- the two rooms are identical, so it’s six to one, half dozen of the other, really. 

“We could put your shitty old apartment in the kitchen alone, that’s what I think,” Bucky says. He shoves his hands in his pockets, peering up at the space through the still-long strands of hair hanging in front of his face. “This is a fuckin’ terrible idea, you know that, right?” 

Bucky looks better than he did a year ago, more himself, more solid within his own skin but the return of his memories, the return of his agency hasn’t brought peace to Bucky’s frame, only the weight of everything HYDRA’s left him with. He’s always shifting, these days, playing with a loose thread or running a hand through his still-long hair, like it takes every ounce of his strength to just hold on, to keep from running and running so fast that no one can ever catch him again. 

Steve blows out a breath. There are things he wants to say, here, but he doesn’t have the right to say them just yet. Give him space, Sam would say, don’t make it about you or I’ll know and I’ll Falcon punch you in the nuts, Sam would say, and Steve feels a smile tugging at the edges of his lips, knowing full well that it’s a threat that Sam would make good on. 

Steve tilts his head upwards. “I’ll take the one on the left, if that’s okay?” 

The one furthest away from the staircase, the furthest from any exits. Bucky makes no movement to suggest that he’s heard Steve or that he’s even listening but he starts up the stairs anyways, walking straight into the first room and slamming the door shut behind him. 

Steve stands, hovering outside of Bucky’s door for several minutes, hand lifted as if to knock. It’s a thick oak door, expensive and brand new but a flimsy separator, nonetheless, and Steve doesn’t have to focus to know that Bucky knows he’s there. 

He wants to press his ear up to the door, wants to imagine that he could hear the rustle of fabric against wood, that heavy, navy blue canvas jacket that Bucky’s taken to wearing shifting as Bucky presses right up against the other side, the two of them creating a parentheses, a mirror image always reflecting. It is a foolish, romantic thought, though, and Steve banishes it as quickly as it comes, shaking himself and making his way to his own room.

  


***

The funny thing is, it was never all that complicated between them back before the war, not really.

Not long out of the ice, Steve downloaded a couple of the movies made about his life out of a strange and morbid curiosity. He had to force himself to swallow the nausea down and push past the churning in his gut at the sheer invasiveness of it and at the end of it, he almost managed to get through every last one of them. 

Thanks to Sam, he got his hands on some of the better attempts at conquering his biography, the ones who got it a little bit closer to the truth than mainstream academia. All the authors got for it was ridicule and their names known only in a relatively small circle for their troubles but he appreciates the thought, anyways. There’s something comforting in the idea that there were people born long after he died who fought to tell the truth about a man they’d only known through newspaper clippings and history textbooks.

He knows that there are people who guessed, quite rightly, that there was a little more going on between Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes than just friendship, that they had run the gamut of just about every way two people could love each other. 

But the Steve and Bucky in those books were creations of nostalgia and misinformation, written by authors preoccupied with the trappings of the times and obsessed with narratives of repression and struggle and the thing is -- the thing is, it really didn’t matter as much as all that. 

Not when Steve knew he’d die young, anyways, for all that Bucky stubbornly insisted otherwise. With that knowledge, that bone-sure acceptance that he wasn’t going to be around as long as he’d like, the question of grabbing at what happiness that he could when he could was simple. 

The two of them, they could go months without much more than a friendly arm around a shoulder. Sometimes, it was when Bucky really fell for a girl he was seeing and it looked like maybe it was turning into something serious, like Alice Brown from three streets over in Spring of ‘39. Sometimes it was when Steve was too sick or too tired from working on top of sickness and sometimes it was just because it was simpler not to, the cadence of their friendship unchanged by what was and what wasn’t. 

But then there were the months and months on end when Bucky was over every night and gone by morning, always careful to be home in time to make breakfast for his sisters. There was a comfortable, semi-permanent and all too-familiar Bucky-shaped imprint left behind in Steve’s sheets in his stead. There are pages and pages of sketchbooks, lost somewhere in time, filled with the shape of Bucky’s knuckles gripped tight around the thin, metal bars of Steve’s headboard metal while Steve fucked him, as Bucky bit back groans and edged Steve on in equal measure.

They broke that headboard, one night, the flimsy metal snapping under combined weight and force and enthusiasm, and Bucky had laughed so hard that Steve had to push him off the bed to get him to stop.

Bucky never treated Steve like he was fragile, not with his heart and not with his body and that’s why it worked. That’s why they worked. 

They had a routine and sure, it wasn’t a perfect one but they didn’t exactly live in perfect times. 

Steve could’ve talked about it, after, but then again, what would he say? 

That they were together except for all of the times that they weren’t. That they came together and they drifted apart, that they fell in love, sometimes with other people but still always, always with each other. 

That their story is a zig and a zag, from A to C to Z and back again, and if there’s one thing that he knows, it’s that it doesn’t fit into any of these books. 

The trouble is, their story took another zig and now here they are, so many years later and all of the base fundamentals of their long-lost routine no longer apply. 

And Steve’s not exactly sure where that leaves them.

  


***

They’ve been at Stark Tower a week, now, when it hits him. It’s half past three in the morning just as Steve’s shocked awake by the usual nightmare, the chill of the ice not fading fast enough for his liking. Something just clicks and all of a sudden, the enormity of it all crashes in on him -- from the stark, brutal details in Bucky’s case files to the half a year he and Sam spent chasing down Bucky and HYDRA in equal measure to the war, always the war, ending in decades upon decades of a cold, dark misery. Steve blinks rapidly but it’s too late, his face is wet with hot tears slipping down his cheeks and his chest heaves with sobs that he’s kept in for so, _so_ long and Steve groans, throwing an arm across his face to try and hide the sound of it all. 

Steve doesn’t know how long he lies there, heaving out great, gasping sobs into the crook of his arm before there’s a dip in the bed as a familiar weight settles itself around him, the coolness of the metal arm sliding around Steve’s shoulders, and it is a cruel joke that this is the first time that they’ve really touched since the Helicarrier.

“Hey, c’mon, Steve, it’s okay, I got you,” Bucky murmurs, voice raspy from disuse but the cadence of these words belongs seventy-five years in the past at a sick boy’s bedside, not here in this cold, sterile room that he’s made a home of and Steve’s breath catches at the dissonance. 

“That’s not -- that’s not how this is supposed to -- “ Steve coughs into the crook of his elbow and Jesus Christ, if this were anyone else in the world in bed with him right now, it’d be a couple different shades of fucking embarrassing. But it’s not anyone else, it’s Bucky, Bucky who has seen him at so many of his worsts and that the knowledge that he can be here for more, for every next worst, is finally, _finally_ setting in, sending Steve into a tailspin. “I’m supposed to get _you_ , Buck, not the other way ‘round.”

Bucky huffs. “Rogers, you never change. We got each other, alright, is that better?” 

Steve pulls his arm away from his face, drinking in the sight before him. Through the dim light seeping in from behind the curtains, Steve can make out the furrowed brow, the annoyed twist to the lips. It’s the face that Bucky always makes when he thinks Steve’s being too stubborn for his own goddamn good and it’s such a _Bucky_ face, no trace of the Winter Soldier in it, that something in Steve settles, instantly, in an almost-Pavlovian response to a sight as familiar as the back of his own hand. 

“You done?” 

“Yeah,” Steve says, and if it comes out a little raw, a little wet, well -- neither of them are in any rush to point it out. “Yeah, I’m done.” 

Bucky moves as if to get off the bed but Steve stops him with a light hand. “Hey, stay? If you want to, I mean. You’re uh, you’re welcome to stay. But you know….only if you want to.” 

A fond expression crosses Bucky’s face, softening the lines around his eyes and chasing away the deep wrinkle between his brows. “Yeah, alright, pal, I can stay.” 

Bucky re-settles, shifting just far enough away from Steve that they each have their own pillow but staying just close enough that there’s a current of heat running up and down Steve’s body where they’re brushed up against each other. “G’night, Steve.” 

Steve, the weight of exhaustion falling heavy upon him, drops off to sleep right away.

  


***

When next Steve blinks awake, it’s to find Bucky leaning out the cracked open bedroom window, blowing cigarette smoke outside and using Steve’s favorite chipped Ikea coffee mug as an ashtray. Both items mean that Bucky had to leave Steve’s room to retrieve them and that he chose to return, anyways, causes a warm, hopeful feeling to unfurl in Steve’s chest.

“‘Morning, Buck,” Steve says, leaning up on his elbows. With the morning light shining through him, Bucky looks younger, a little less worn than he did the night before. He’s fully dressed in a pair of black jeans and a soft, red wool sweater that Steve bought months ago and never found the occasion to wear, deeming it too formal for everyday use, wet hair curling and sticking to the nape of his neck, clearly fresh from a shower. 

“You lied,” Bucky says, not turning around, gaze still focused outwards, staring unseeing out at the city below them. 

“What?”

“On the witness stand. Called me your best friend. I mean, it’s kind of a lie by omission but it’s still a lie, right?” 

“I didn’t want to go up there in the first place,” Steve admits. “Everyone in that room knew I was biased. I thought it could only hurt your case. If I told the truth -- well, even worse, right?” 

“Thought things were different these days.” 

Steve scrubs a hand wearily over bleary eyes. “Not that different, Buck.” 

Bucky hums, stubbing out his cigarette on the inside of the coffee mug and setting it aside before turning around to face Steve head on. “I’m sorry, Steve.” 

“What for?”

“That you didn’t get to marry Peggy.” 

“Yeah,” Steve says, voice quiet. They are on precarious ground, here, edging into territory that they never talked about, not really. “I’m sorry too.” 

“You know, I don’t -- “ Bucky starts and then stops, exhaling as if frustrated, unable to find the words. “I wasn’t prepared for it.” 

“For what?”

Bucky laughs and it comes out harsh, bitter. “Any of it. War. You, gettin’ bigger. You, falling for someone else. Take your pick. But -- but I didn’t think I’d make it out, you know. I was glad that you had someone. Someone that you loved like that. Someone who didn’t take your shit.” 

“Remember that time she shot at me?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “You were being an ass.” 

“Yeah,” Steve says, suppressing a wince even now, so many years later, embarrassed by how he’d reacted that day. “Yeah, I really was.” 

“Look, I --- ” Bucky starts, pulling idly on the hem of Steve’s sweater, rolling his eyes in such a clear display of exasperation with himself that Steve can’t help but smile. “I’m gonna say some shit and it’s gonna be uncomfortable and we’re both gonna hate it, probably, but not saying it is worse. Okay?”

“Okay.” 

Bucky nods, taking Steve at his word and pushing on. 

“I got a list of things I’ve done wrong as long as my arm -- longer, even, and that’s not gonna go away anytime soon. I gotta live with it or learn to, and nothing you say about -- about guilt or free will is gonna change that. Bad things were done to me and as a consequence, I did bad things and it all adds up to a mountain of shit that I have to make square with myself. But for what it’s worth -- the list of things I did right? That adds up to about two. Raising my sisters and loving you.” 

“Bucky -- ” Steve tries to interrupt, swallowing around a lump in his throat. 

“And if you don’t want to talk about if, if you just want to move forward and pretend it never happened,” Bucky says, continuing on doggedly as if Steve didn’t say anything. “That’s uh, that’s your choice, pal. But I figure it’s not...it’s not like it’s such a bad thing to hear, huh?” 

Bucky stops, a scowl set into his features that is equal parts determination and shame, shoulders hunched in and face forward, avoiding Steve’s gaze. It’s the most Bucky’s said at once in years, probably, and it spills out like he’s been thinking it through for a long time now. Every move Bucky’s made since he woke up this morning building up to this moment and that’s the thing, isn’t it, Bucky was always a hell of a lot braver than he ever gave himself credit for. 

Steve pushes the covers aside, heaving himself out of bed and crossing the scant distance between them and it surprises him, still, that he’s taller than Bucky now. Taller than he was during the war, even, because whatever HYDRA did to Bucky, whatever hellish haphazard technology they used to alter his spine to hold up the weight of the metal arm, has forced Bucky’s frame into a shape shorter and stockier than he ever was before. 

“Bucky, I don’t want to forget about it. You see, I got this problem, I keep falling in love with the best people and I just never get around to figuring out how to stop.” 

Bucky drops his head to Steve’s shoulder, letting out a deep, prolonged groan. “This is the most embarrassing conversation of my life, Rogers, do you gotta be so earnest about it.” 

Steve nudges his nose against Bucky’s ear, eliciting a shiver so slight that he would’ve missed it if they weren’t pressed so close together. “You fuckin’ started it.” 

“And as usual, you always gotta rise to the occasion, huh?”

“You’re damn right,” Steve says. 

Bucky eases back, widening the stance of his jean-clad legs so Steve can fall into the space between them, sliding around each other until they fit just right, finding a new balance -- finding it in the warmth of Bucky’s lips pressed to Steve’s jaw, stubbly and close and smelling of coffee -- and just as Bucky is pushing up into a kiss, light as anything, the loud, officious tones of JARVIS sound out all around them. 

“Captain Rogers, your presence is required in the central meeting rooms immediately. Mister Stark suggests that you do suit up, first, there’s been sightings of an alien spacecraft just north of Chicago.” 

“Talk about bad timing,” Bucky says, pulling back, a scowl firmly set on his face. 

“Damnit,” Steve says, “fuckin’ damnit all to hell.” He trips backwards, almost falling over his own feet in the hurry to pull his suit out of the closet, stripping quickly and efficiently and tugging the kevlar on, forcing himself not to look down and wince at the garishness of his latest suit. 

“When I get back -- whenever I get back, you and me, we’re goin’ out. We’ll grab dinner, we’ll talk about this, alright?” Steve says, grabbing his shield from the back of the closet and attaching it to the straps that crisscross the back of his suit. 

“What, you askin’ me on a date, Rogers? Do I gotta put on my best party dress?” 

“Only if you want to,” Steve says, pausing just long enough to toss Bucky a shit-eating grin only for Bucky to stick his tongue out at him like they’re fuckin’ children and not ninety-five years old and counting, and then Steve’s sprinting out the door and down the stairs, long gone.

  


***

Four days, five alien battleships and one minor other-worldly contagion later and Steve is freshly showered, changed into borrowed scrubs and listing slightly to the side as he waits for the Stark Tower elevator to climb to his and Bucky’s floor. Wanda is sleeping against Pietro’s shoulder, drool trailing down her chin, and Clint looks like he just went ten rounds with a Chitauri and lost.

Natasha disappeared on them somewhere between Chicago and Manhattan, muttering something about Maria Hill and safe houses and staying the hell away from Avengers business for at least a couple of weeks. 

“Cap? Your floor,” Stark says, reaching out and giving Steve’s shoulder a light push. He shakes himself out of it and gets out, trudging slowly up the staircase. 

The door to Bucky’s bedroom is flung wide open but it’s late, going on 4 AM now, and Bucky is fast asleep in the middle of his bed, metal arm flung out wide. Even in sleep, he is restless, a semi-permanent furrow fixed between his brows, head listing from side to side, scrunching up his pillow. Steve stands, transfixed for several moments, fighting the urge to walk over, to smooth a finger across that brow and join Bucky in bed; curling around him the way Bucky did him just five nights ago. 

But whatever happened between them the morning after, this liberty is not Steve’s to take. 

Steve pushes off from the doorframe, slipping into his room and collapsing onto his own bed, falling into a deep, dreamless sleep in a matter of seconds.

  


***

The smell of fried bacon and coffee filters through Steve’s dream, guiding him into wakefulness. He blinks awake, disoriented by the bright mid-morning sun shining into his room. He never sleeps this late, but.

Chicago. Aliens. Four days straight of fighting. Right. 

He’s still wearing the nurse’s scrubs he borrowed-slash-stole from a Chicago hospital on their way out, his tattered gear left somewhere in the hands of someone far more capable than him at repairing it. His shield lays propped up against the foot of the bed, never far away. 

Steve spares half a second to consider changing before deciding that food is far, far more important, stretching out his arms to test still-sore limbs and lifting himself out of bed. 

Bucky is standing at the stove-top, teasing at bacon strips in one frying pan and poking idly at a couple of almost-done pancakes in the other. 

“Bacon, really? If your ma could see you now, Buck.” 

Bucky flips Steve off without turning around. “It’s turkey bacon, asshole. Could you get me the maple syrup from the fridge, the pancakes are about finished.” 

Steve pulls open the door to the fridge, keeping it propped open with his hip as he rummages around for the syrup. He’s just about got his hands on it when he feels Bucky come up behind him, hovering just close enough to touch. 

“Can I?” 

Steve leans back into him. “Yeah,” he says. “‘Course you can, Buck.” 

Bucky runs his hands up and down Steve’s ribs, shifting forward and around before running the palms of his hands along the nape of Steve’s neck, fingers pressing lightly into his scalp. It’s an old habit, one that developed during the war after Steve got laid up from a gunshot wound that went a whole lot deeper than he let on until he was already grey and pale and shaking with it. After, Bucky made it clear that he wasn’t gonna keep letting Steve get away with any attempts at his Captain America can fight through anything bullshit. The touch is not sexual, it was never meant to be, but it’s not lacking in its intimacy, either, and Steve doesn’t fight the shiver that runs through him when Bucky places an absent kiss to Steve’s neck before moving away. 

“Agent May already called up while you were asleep, they want you for debriefing in an hour,” Bucky says, flipping and dividing the stack of pancakes evenly between two plates. “I guess protocol doesn’t change much no matter how who’s in charge.” 

Steve grimaces, the thought of going into the still newly formed SHIELD leaving a bitter taste in the back of his mouth. Maria is keeping an eye on it, he knows, keeping tabs in ways that Coulson will never catch onto but it still chafes, nonetheless, the knowledge that maybe he’d gone and died two times over for nothing, in the end, only to keep coming up against an enemy with an ever-shifting mask but always the same face underneath it. 

“They know how you feel about that?” Bucky asks, voice so carefully neutral that Steve has a good idea just how much simmering anger lies beneath it. 

“I’ve made my point several times over. But I’m just one man and I’m fresh outta favors down on Capitol Hill. The pervasive sentiment is that a global intelligence apparatus is a necessary evil in this brave new world of ours.” Steve reaches over, picking up Bucky’s coffee mug and taking a deep sip. Black with two sugars, they always did take it the same way. Sugar tastes different, now, better with no rationing and more options. There’s more variety these days and something about that grounds him in the present, a scraping on the back of his tongue to remind him that so much more has changed than he can possibly comprehend. 

Steve sets the mug down with a loud clatter against the marble countertop, surprised at his own surge of anger, surprised that this still bothers him as much as it does so many months later. “Nat tried to tell them. She tried to point out that they weren’t _there_ , that they couldn’t understand what happened that day the way we could. She pulled out all the stops, you know in that way of hers. If she couldn’t do it, who the hell can?” 

“If they ever come for me -- “ Bucky starts, voice tight, hands knuckling the countertop, almost unconsciously. 

“They won’t,” Steve says, and the forcefulness of the words, that’s the part that doesn’t surprise him, not even a little bit it. “They’d have to get through me first.” 

“That so, Rogers?”

“You know it is.” 

“Yeah,” Bucky says, letting a half-grin tugging at the corner of his lips, letting it chase away the heaviness in the air and isn’t that a rare enough sight as to be cherished. “Yeah, I do. So, about that date, Steve….you got any place in mind?” 

“You ever tried Korean barbecue?” 

Bucky raises both eyebrows. “Pal, I don’t even know what those words are supposed to mean when put together.” 

Neither had Steve until Sharon and Natasha bullied him into branching out from his usual roster of familiar takeout places but he’s not about to go around admitting that out loud just yet. 

“Feel like finding out?”

“Why the hell not, huh?” Bucky says, brandishing a forkful of pancakes in Steve’s direction. “Might as well start figurin’ out what the hell we saved this future for anyways, right?” 

“Pick you up at 8?”

“With bells on, buddy.”

  


***

Bucky looks -- well, Bucky looks unbelievably good and Steve finds himself running a hand down the front of his button down, suddenly self-conscious, because he’s never really been all that good at this, not the way Bucky was.

Bucky’s wearing that same red sweater of Steve’s, the one that he’s apparently bogarted for good, paired with nice, dark grey slacks, hair tied back in a low, messy bun. The sleeves of the sweater fall exactly right at the wrist, Bucky making no attempt to hide or cover up his metal arm. He’s well-rested in a way that he probably hasn’t been in years and years and for all that he moves with a measured, predator’s grace, now, it’s a good look for him. Steve keeps staring right on back, flushing but unashamed, when Bucky catches him gaping, a half-smirk curling across his face. 

“I know your mama taught you that it’s rude to stare, Steven Grant,” Bucky chides, but there’s a smug, pleased undertone to it as Bucky inclines his head lightly to fiddle with the sleeves of his sweater, making as if he’s unaffected by it all. 

But this game is not a new one, not with them, and Steve knows better. 

“Ma taught me to mind my manners around those who deserved them and I don’t see anyone like that around here, do you?” 

“I’m gonna write a book about you one day, you know. Life with Steve Rogers: The Perpetual Smart Ass. No one else knows what a mouthy little shit you are, probably won’t even believe a fuckin’ word I say but it’ll be a bestseller anyways,” Bucky says, reaching up a hand to smooth away the stray lock of Steve’s hair that keeps falling into his eyes. 

“I get a cut of the profits, right?” Steve says, pushing into Bucky’s space deliberately as they make for the elevators, triumphant when Bucky pushes right back. 

“Fuck you, no,” Bucky laughs. “Well, alright -- maybe. We gotta see how it sells first, yeah?” 

They’re almost out of the Stark Tower lobby, Bucky holding the door open for Steve out of some deeply embedded sense of chivalry that used to make Steve prickle with annoyance but now, he doesn’t even blink at, when a voice calls out from behind them. 

“Hey, you two going to get some grub?” Clint says, jogging up to meet them. “Thank fuckin’ God, I’m _starving_. I couldn’t figure out what I wanted for the weekly grocery delivery so I told Pepper to just double whatever she’s getting and now I’ve got a fridge full of kale that I don’t know what to do with. What, no one’s ever heard of a casserole around here?” 

Bucky raises both eyebrows at Steve, mouthing “casserole?” at him wordlessly. 

“Look, Bucky and I were headed to the Korean barbecue place a couple of streets over, I made reservations…”

“Great! I love Korean barbecue, man, hold up,” Clint says, digging through the front pocket of his faded purple hoodie to pull out his cell phone. “I’m gonna invite Wanda, she’s been wanting to try that place.” 

Steve clears his throat. “It was just supposed to be the two of us, that’s what the reservation is for….” 

Clint waves a hand. “I’m sure they can pull up a couple extra chairs. Hey, try to be cool about it when Wanda shows up. She’s pretty, you know -- she’s just got that something -- well, let’s just say that I’m feeling the situation out. It’s just a little hard to when we’re always all around each other, you know?”

“No,” Steve says blankly. “I have no idea.” 

On the other side of the lobby, Wanda emerges from the elevator, waves and then starts to make her way towards them. Clint’s right, she does have that something about her; it’s an uncommon kindness that’s hard not to be drawn to. 

She and Clint are probably his favorite non-Natasha-shaped teammates and if it were any other night of the week, Steve would’ve been thrilled to spend more time with them, but it’s not any other night of the week, it’s date night with Bucky and it’s crumbling right before his very eyes and there’s no good, non-rude way to make it stop. 

Steve swallows back a groan, forcing himself to wipe any expression of disappointment off his face. 

“And _you_ told me not to bring my knife,” Bucky hisses quietly in Steve’s ear. 

“Hey guys,” Wanda says. “So, Clint said something about Korean barbecue?”

  


***

The next day, Steve drops by the Harlem VA to complain about the date-gone-wrong and gets laughed out of Sam’s office.

The last thing Steve hears before the door closes in his face is, “I can’t believe you let yourself get cockblocked by _Barton_.”

Which is, you know, a fair point.

  


***

The thin t-shirt Steve put on earlier is sticking to him everywhere, his whole body drenched in sweat in a way that it hasn’t been in a long, long time.

A few of the scientists brought in during Bucky’s trial theorized that he was injected with an inferior version of the very same serum that transformed Steve but there is nothing inferior about the way Bucky throws his weight across the training mat in the gym. Nothing less in the way he uses his arm as a foundation to pull off near-impossible moves that send Steve scrambling. 

“To first blood,” Bucky’d said, over an hour ago now, but they are too good, too evenly matched, an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object, and there is no blood, no stop in sight. 

Bucky is focused, sharp, but present, so very present in a way that’s all Sergeant Barnes, tossing out jokes and goading Steve on, laughing when Steve trips up and never, ever crying uncle. 

It’s cathartic in a way that maybe Steve doesn’t want to analyze too closely but he’s in it too deep now to pretend that this hasn’t been in him all along -- this full-body rush at flesh hitting flesh, the surge of victory when he lands a hit just right and then some, sending Bucky sprawling across the mat onto his back. 

It’s a turn on, too, and while that’s not exactly a surprise, the intensity of it, how much it’s getting him going, is. 

Steve’s entire world is narrowed down to this room; the gym and Bucky and every glancing blow a new step in the dance. 

“That all you got, Rogers,” Bucky calls out, wiping sweat out of his eyes with the back of his hand and grinning up at Steve toothily. He’s never been more beautiful. 

Steve drops into a measured, practiced fall, both hands falling heavily on either side of Bucky’s head, hitting the mat with a loud, sharp smack. 

“Maybe, maybe not.”

They’re not touching, not exactly -- Steve’s got his weight braced on his forearms, now, hovering over Bucky’s frame but it would take barely energy at all to change that, to create a new equilibrium.

The door to the gym opens with a loud clatter, the cacophony of many voices speaking at once filtering through it. 

“What are you old fogies doing, lying around and taking naps? Make room for the rest of us,” Pietro calls out. “‘Cause I made a bet with Stark that I can outrace the suit but no one will let us do it outside of a controlled environment.” 

Steve turns and rolls to the side, flopping face-first onto the mat and hoping to God that no one notices how hard he is until he’s willed his erection away. 

Bucky throws an arm over his face, letting out a groan low enough that only Steve can hear it. 

“I’m gonna fuckin’ kill something.”

  


***

It’s the third week in September and that means that everywhere he turns, there are pumpkins. Real pumpkins, plastic pumpkins, pumpkin cut-outs. Autumn in New York is in full swing and there’s not a single coffee shop in the entire New York Metropolitan Area that will let him forget it.

Steve ducks into a cafe in Hell’s Kitchen, dodging an entire row of decorative paper pumpkins hanging from the ceiling, to search out the familiar sight of Pepper Potts’s strawberry blonde up-do. He’d promised her this morning that he’d meet her here on her break to go through a charity benefit that they’re co-organizing to bring better arts education to children. 

But in the space where Pepper promised she would be, there is only a vaguely-familiar brown-haired young woman in a purple knit cap and thick glasses, who keeps glancing out the window every few minutes with a frown on her face. 

Steve waits a minute, paused in indecision, before walking over to the girl. “Are you by any chance waiting for Pepper Potts?” 

The girl looks up sharply, eyes widening beneath her glasses. “Holy crap, no.” 

“No, you’re not waiting for her?” 

“No. Yes. Yes, I’m waiting for her but no, I don’t think she’s coming,” the girl says, letting out a loud, gusty sigh. “Un-fucking-believable. In what world does ‘no, I’m not looking to date right now’ translate into ‘no, I’m not looking to date right now but sure, throw Captain America my way, _that’ll_ turn this ship right around’.” 

“Um,” Steve says. 

“Darcy Lewis. Jane Foster’s Data Analyst. Or, you know, her personal coffee maker, whichever one you like best,” Darcy says, smiling at him weakly. “We’ve been had. Or, I’ve been had, at least, I don’t know about you. Holy shit, you didn’t think this was a date, right?” 

Steve pulls out a chair at the table, dropping into it with a thunk. “I was under the impression that I was coming to a low-key business meeting.” 

Darcy drops her head into her hand, forehead hitting palm with a dull thud. “I’m so sorry. You’re, uh -- you’re, you know, wow, like -- if you ever wanted to just, I don’t know, let me watch you punch a punching bag for an hour, pencil me in, I’m there, but I’m trying this whole no-dating until I stop being in love with my best friend thing and you’re totally an innocent bystander.” 

“Well, I know a thing or two about that, at least.”

Darcy raises her head up, giving him an incredulous stare. “What, being an innocent bystander? Because no offense, dude, but you’ve got all this,” she says, waving her hand up and down in front of him, “going on.” 

A smile tugs at the edges of Steve’s lips. “No, the being in love with my best friend part.” 

“Oh,” Darcy says, sitting up and eyeing him carefully. “Wow, you are really not single, are you?”

“Not even a little bit,” Steve says, with no amount of regret. “Is, uh….would Doctor Foster be the best friend in question?” 

“I’m like, this close to leaping across this table and hugging you and embarrassing us both, just so you know,” Darcy says. 

“Well, at least I’ve been warned.”

  


***

Three hours later, Steve walks back into Stark Tower with a pleasant, low-grade caffeine buzz and Darcy Lewis’s cell number programmed into his phone.

He pulls Pepper away into a corner of the common room kitchen, explaining that while Darcy Lewis is a hell of a girl and he appreciates the thought and the concern that went into her efforts, he’s trying to repair his relationship with Bucky and going out on dates with other people is maybe not the best way to go about doing that. 

Pepper nods thoughtfully, all poise and grace in that way of hers, and Steve figures that that’ll about be the end of it.

  


***

“You know, it’d be a little easier to do this if you didn’t keep making that face,” Steve grouses, lifting a foot up to nudge Bucky in the ribs.

“It’d probably be easier if we weren’t sitting like this, too, but that doesn’t seem to be stoppin’ you, Rogers,” Bucky says, turning to face Steve and scowling deliberately. 

Bucky’s not wrong, exactly, but sprawled out on the couch, Steve’s feet thrown in Bucky’s lap and his back propped up against the side cushion, is the closest they’ve been in over a week and he’s not gonna be the one to move and waste it. 

“Might as well be comfortable if my subject’s gonna be uncooperative,” Steve says, carefully not looking up from the page, swift-sure hands shading in Bucky’s day-old stubble. 

“Oh yeah, I’m the uncooperative one,” Bucky mutters, reaching down with one hand and tracing the length of Steve’s right foot from heel to toes lightly with his index finger, grinning triumphantly when Steve shivers and kicks out. 

“Damnit, Buck.” 

“So, the serum didn’t get rid of your ticklish spots. Good to know,” Bucky says. 

“I swear to God, Buck -- ” 

“Well, if it isn’t my two favorite grandpas!” Tony’s voice booms out across their living room, the sure footsteps of the man himself following quickly after. Tony walks into view, the very picture of willful reluctance. There’s something drawn on and false about Tony, now, like he’s trying too hard not to let it show. He and Bucky don’t talk, exactly -- they probably never will and they’ll probably both be more comfortable that way, for all that it doesn’t make these moments when they share the same space any less fraught. 

Tony shoves his hands into his pockets, rocking back and forth on the balls of his heels in front of the couch. “Listen, Rogers. You should. You really should let Pepper do the whole. The whole find you a date thing. She’s good at ah -- everything, probably, remind me to upload her resume to your tablet some time, the woman comes with references. 100% satisfaction guaranteed.” 

“Tony, my love life is none of your business.” 

“Yeah, see --- that _is_ what I said! That is, I said that, Capsicle, believe you me, but uh, common consensus is that you’re lonely or something, I don’t know, I think you’re fine, get you a robot and a blender and you’ll be right as rain _but_ \-- “ 

“ _Tony_. I don’t need to go on dates to find someone. I have Bucky,” Steve says. Bucky wraps one hand around Steve’s foot and tugs, lightly in a solid reassurance, a show of support that makes Steve smile reflexively. 

Stark stares blankly, like he can’t quite comprehend why Steve’s being as stubborn about this as he is. “C’mon, Cap, it’s just _dating_ , you buy a gal dinner, you have your personal assistant show her out the door in the morning, it’s not complicated. I can even get you a personal assistant. You gotta pop that cherry some day.” 

Steve drags a hand down his face. Unbelievable. Genuinely un-fuckin’-believable. 

He fixes Tony with a flat glare. “Stark, get the fuck out.”

  


***

“You want to keep your private life private but you also don’t want people to draw incorrect conclusions. You don’t want to define your relationship to others before you get a chance to define it for yourself. Am I getting warm?”

“Got it in one. You’re a smart one, Widow,” Steve says, smirking when Natasha huffs into the phone. 

“People only see what they want to see,” Natasha says, and he knows that if anyone else would understand that, it’s her. “Maybe you should start wearing a rainbow flag around.” There’s a deep, echoing staticy noise in the background, like the sound of a blizzard in full gear. 

Steve spares half a second to question whether his hearing is going because wasn’t Nat supposed to be in Australia for this mission before deciding that he really, really doesn’t want to know. 

“The rainbow flag is a co-opted symbol that’s become too commercialized by a non-inclusive, corporate-led movement,” Steve says, tucking the phone between his shoulder and his phone so he can keep working on the shading in his latest sketch. 

“Rogers,” Natasha says baldly. “You walk around in the American flag on a weekly basis.” 

Even Steve can admit that he walked right into that one and hangs up without another word.

  


***

Steve’s dozing on the couch, sketchbook on his lap, when Bucky wakes him with a quick shake and a hand over his mouth. Steve blinks, snapping to attention, gaze already falling to where his phone is sitting on the coffee table, expecting it to be lit up with the Avengers Assemble tone.

“Brooklyn Cyclones face the Staten Island Yankees in an hour, if we take the back staircase all the way to the garage, we shouldn’t run into anyone on our way out. Got it?” Bucky says, lifting his hand away from Steve’s mouth. 

Belatedly, Steve regrets the missed opportunity to lick it. Bucky would’ve made that scrunched up pretend-disgusted face, like he always did when they were teenagers, as if it mattered with the way the two of them lived in each other’s pockets. Or maybe -- maybe he wouldn’t, maybe he’d do something different, now, because they are neither of them who they once were and this time, the thought doesn’t hurt. 

Steve blinks, re-focusing on the present. “Wait, what?”

Bucky reaches out and hits Steve in the nose with an envelope, which when flipped open, reveals two unused baseball tickets. “Bought ‘em online with that card Romanoff gave me, they came this morning. Daylight’s a’ wastin’, Rogers, get a move on.” 

They run down the Stark Tower back staircase at breakneck speed, pushing each other along and giggling like the schoolboys they haven’t been in almost a century. Steve is always one step ahead and Bucky is always one step behind, the cool of his metal hand pressed to the small of Steve’s back. It’s an old habit, one that Steve used to resent but now it warms him, this solid reassurance that if he were to stop and turn, Bucky would still be right there, like always. 

They stumble into the garage with a crash, Bucky slamming the door behind them and they’re not even trying to be quiet now as they walk swiftly towards Steve’s bike, Bucky settling up front, an impish grin crossing his face, making it clear that he’s gonna be the one driving. And Steve, well -- Steve can’t exactly complain about that, not when tucking his chin over Bucky’s shoulder and slipping his hands around Bucky’s waist feels as good as it does, like they’re teenagers sneaking out on a date they’re not supposed to go on. 

Steve can admit to himself, now, that he’s always liked to live life with just that little bit of an adrenaline rush. 

They’re on Shore Parkway in record time, the blues and greens of Gravesend Bay made deep and murky by the evening light, and by the time they’re sitting down in their seats at MCU Park, knees pushed together and hot dogs in hand, Steve already knows that this is gonna be one of their better days; a new, good memory to hold close. 

Steve knocks his knee into Bucky’s deliberately. “What, you _had_ to get the nosebleed seats?”

“S’tradition,” Bucky mumbles around a mouthful of hot dog, all the good grace of his mother’s strict manners swiftly forgotten. “Don’t want you gettin’ all high and mighty now that you’re a famous, rich superhero, Rogers.” 

It’s also a little bit down to how Bucky doesn’t like people sitting at his back, these days, how he’s more comfortable with a view of everyone around him and from their vantage point in the last row, this is as good as it gets. Pointing this out will only make him go quiet and closed off, though, and there’s no good reason to do it. 

“Oh, so this is all for my benefit, huh?” 

“Damn right, now eat your fucking hot dog, Steve.” 

Steve leans back and takes a bite of his hot dog, closing his eyes just as there’s a swell in the noise from the crowd. The food isn’t exactly top notch, not the way so many things are these days and the stadium is smaller than any major league juggernaut but with the smell of salt from the ocean blowing in, it’s as close to home as he’s been in years. 

He makes quick work of his hot dog, finishing it in a couple of bites. As Steve pauses to lick the mustard off of his thumb, Bucky’s hand over his mouth comes to mind -- how an hour earlier he had no idea where this night was going. The thought makes him smile, small and pleased, that Bucky planned all this without Steve ever knowing. They’ll both be hungry later, undoubtedly, thanks to a pair of super soldier metabolisms but right now, this is good, this is enough. 

“Hey Buck?” Steve says, reaching a hand over to tangle Bucky’s fingers with his. “Thanks for this.” 

Bucky squeezes Steve’s fingers lightly. “Shit, Steve, you’re not gonna get all sappy on me, are you?”

“Fuck you, pal,” Steve says, and kisses him anyways.

  


***

They take the ride home nice and easy, weaving in and out of traffic at the most leisurely pace that the bike will allow, Bucky clearly relishing the feel of the bike and the road stretching out beneath him and Steve along for the ride, always.

Bucky grabs him by the lapel of his jacket as soon as they’re parked in the Stark Tower garage, kissing him or licking his way into Steve’s mouth, more like. He takes his time with it until Steve’s dizzy with want before breaking away, revealing a sly grin on Bucky’s too-red lips because he’s always known just how well he can take Steve apart. 

They move as if through molasses, a warmth sparking between that requires no urgency, just slow, traded smiles and the feeling of Bucky’s hand slipping inside of Steve’s as they duck into the elevator. 

“Could go for some of your ma’s Irish coffee right about now,” Bucky murmurs into the sweat-slick skin of Steve’s neck. 

“Don’t got any whisky, we’d have to go to the common floor,” Steve says. Bucky shrugs in assent, so Steve reaches over and presses the button to the common floor before easing back, tugging Bucky closer to him. 

The doors ping when they reach the right floor, opening to reveal every single resident of Stark Tower vaguely clustered around the entrance area, all in varying states of trying not to look obvious about it. 

“Uh, hello,” Steve says. 

“Steve,” Bruce starts, rubbing at his glasses with the hem of his shirt as if to avoid looking right at Steve. “We’re very sorry that your secret had to come out this way -- ah, I mean. Poor choice of words. We apologize, as a whole, if we ever made you feel as if you couldn’t tell us.” 

“The fuck?” Bucky says, just as Steve asks, bewildered, “what secret?”

“Someone with an Instagram took a photo of you two, uh. Kissing at a baseball game?” 

“Looked more like necking to me,” Clint says. Everyone turns and glares at him and Clint just shrugs. “What? It did. I’m just sayin’, there’s a difference.” 

Steve exhales and it comes out as laughter. “Uh, it wasn’t a secret but I do appreciate your concern.” 

“ _ **What?**_ ” 

Several people speak at once and Steve doesn’t even bother to parse out who is who. It’s like herding cats with this crew, sometimes. 

“You people are supposed to be smart. Think about it,” Bucky says, leaning across Steve to press the button to their floor. 

“What about the Irish coffee?” 

“Oh, I think it can wait,” Bucky says, slow and weighted and coupled with a stare that heats Steve right down to his core. 

“Yeah,” Steve says thickly. “Yeah, good call, it can definitely wait.” 

“Can I unsee this,” Tony’s voice sounds out behind them but neither pays him any mind. “Because I’m gonna want to unsee this.” 

“Hey, Stevie, you want to find out if that fancy headboard of yours will hold up better than the flimsy one in your old apartment?” Bucky asks conversationally. 

The last thing they hear before the elevators slam shut is a high-pitched, indignant squawk.

  


***

“So, I’m enforcing a rule,” Steve says. They walk palm to palm, skin to skin and skin to metal, fingers interlaced, backwards into Steve’s bedroom. This infuriating cocktail of want and affection and frustration burns slow but steady as a heartbeat.

“Yeah, what kinda rule, Rogers? You know you’re no good with them.” 

“You. Me. No interruptions.” 

Bucky hums. “For how long?” 

“One week, two weeks tops.” 

“My kind of rule, Rogers,” Bucky says and closes the distance. 

This is the routine, now.

**Author's Note:**

> You can [find me on tumblr!](http://queercap.tumblr.com)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] build it bigger than the sun](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7279282) by [reena_jenkins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reena_jenkins/pseuds/reena_jenkins)




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